Coming Down From the Mountain
The dead inform
the behaviour of the living
even when they go early.
I don my blue wedding suit
and finest manners
for the funeral
of Jordan’s younger brother,
offering the cabbie
too generous a tip.
He refuses it, saying
keep your money, kid,
even if people
are dying too soon.
I make it through mass
and the interment
on the mountain
only by emulating
the composure
of the bereaved.
The rain holds off
and I am home
before the crack of thunder
and the deluge,
but there’s electricity
humming in the air
and I must lie down.
With quiet pride
you appear in the bedroom
not long after me
and we stretch out
to nap half-dressed.
I am shaken,
and you know it
when a burst of thunder
makes me wince.
We are all going to die
but you wish to show me
not just yet,
offering escape
not from mortality
but its imminence.
You reach out
and hold me to you,
whispering words of comfort
and combing my hair
with your fingers.
I do not stir,
content to be held,
at peace with death
so long as I rest
in your arms.
— Quinn McIlhone
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